Jena Holtberg-Benge is a Woman Who Means Business

Wherever Jena Holtberg-Benge goes, success follows. In 1995, an ambitious Holtberg-Benge graduated from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, with a Bachelor of Arts in international studies. Six months later, she landed a job at Laura Mercier as an account manager, overseeing stores from North Carolina to Colorado and driving a 30 percent increase in annual sales. 

Today, she’s the general manager at John Deere Reman, a division of John Deere that employs approximately 700 people and distributes remanufactured John Deere parts globally. She plays a vital role in the company’s success—and has learned a lot about teamwork, leadership and cultural differences along the way as her work has taken her across the globe.

Less than a month after she started, she was on a plane to Brisbane, Australia, to make a presentation to John Deere’s sales branch and help them create their deere.com.au website, align the brand and discuss dealer website offerings. Now, she oversees aspects of the company’s operations, finances, sales, marketing, customer support, engineering, supply management, human resources and finance.

Working for a company that operates on a global scale has allowed Holtberg-Benge to step into challenging situations that have taught her how to navigate company hierarchy and cultural expectations. One particularly difficult project she worked on involved the Commonwealth of Independent States and Russia. The project taught her the importance of working well with a team. 

“During a senior leadership meeting in Germany, I had the opportunity to present my recommendation regarding the combines I believed would be appropriate for the CIS and Russia markets,” she says. “I had a positive response from my leadership and the senior officers, but when I returned home, my boss received an irate call from the head of the region, who was extremely mad. He and his team were not aligned with the recommendation.” Holtberg-Benge was devastated. She had put a lot of work into getting to the conclusion, but the regional team felt she had not included them enough in the decision-making process. But she was also embarrassed. “I thought this was something I should be able to navigate well,” she says.

Holtberg-Benge didn’t leave this difficult situation without learning from it. Through the experience, she discovered how important it is to understand decision rights within a large company like John Deere & Co. According to her, understanding who has the decision-making power helps you determine who to influence and who you need to align with.  

“I realized I did not have the relationships or respect within that region yet,” she says. “After that, I worked extra-hard to enlist the support of the region. I often leverage a stakeholder analysis when I work on a large or important project, which helps me know who I need to connect with.”

Over the years, Holtberg-Benge has worked with more international markets than Russia and Germany. As an e-marketing champion and international e-business analyst for Deere & Co., she has created and coordinated a coherent e-business plan for Deere’s markets in countries like Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, Brazil, Australia and France. She also worked on behalf of the company from 2005 to 2008 in Pune, India, where she was part of the leadership group that launched the John Deere Technology Center, managing the technical authoring group and later deploying the John Deere Product Quality System.